A Very Useful Music Theory For Guitar Players

'Music Theory' is a term that most aspiring guitar players try to avoid on first sight. It is often thought of as being tedious and stressful. If this relates to you, let me change your perception by showing you a very useful music theory that can be used to figure out the chord sequence of a song fast and easy. 

Scale Tone Chords

'Scale Tone Chords' are chords that are made entirely from notes of one particular scale. These chords will fits naturally together to form a chord progression that will support the melody written from that scale. To further understand this concept, let's examine how chords are constructed.

Basic chords are constructed by combining at least three notes from a scale. The formula to create a major chord is by combining notes that are a third apart from each other. This can be considered as; I - III - V.

Here's a C major scale:

*C major is always a good scale..:)*.

C(I) - D(II) - E(III) - F(IV) - G(V) - A(VI) - B(VII) - C(I)

By using this formula, we can create a C major chord by combining the note C, E and G from the scale (the name of a chord is the same as the root or 'I' note). To test this theory, try forming a C chord on your guitar, and identify the notes that are available, you will always end up with just C, E and G.

The I - III - V formula can be apply to every notes of the C major scale above, and by doing so will create a 'Scale Tone Chord'.

Here's how it works:

_C__ Dm__Em__F__G__Am__Bdim__C_= CHORDS CREATED 

_G___A____B__C__D___E____F____G_=(V)

_E___F____G__A__B___C____D____E_=(III)

_C___D___ E__F__G___A____B____C_=(I) = C MAJOR SCALE

As you can see, applying this formula to every note of the C major scale resulted in the creation of a set of chords that are common or most likely to be found in songs that start with C major.

If we take another scale and repeat the method above, we will always end up producing the following set of scale tone chords:

Chords created from scale tone: 

Major - Minor - Minor - Major - Major - Minor - Diminished - Major 

In a key of 'G major', these would be:

(G - Am - Bm - C - D - Em - F#dim - G)

Can you see the benefit of knowing this? Whenever you need to figure out the chord sequence of a song, all you have to do is find the starting chord of the song and figure out the rest of the chords by choosing it from the other 'Scale tone chords' from that key.

Figuring out the chord sequence of a song is pretty much a guessing game, but with this method you'll know exactly what you're doing. Have fun!